The Arab press offered accounts of individuals who stood up to Israel. Dina Ezzat covers their ordeals It has become almost a daily feature in the Arab affairs pages of newspapers to run stories of the bloodshed in the occupied Palestinian territories and Iraq. It is no longer shocking for a daily to publish stories like that of the Palestinian mother whose three children were shot dead by the Israeli army or the Iraqi family whose members were killed in cold blood in their car as they drove by an American checkpoint. These, sadly, have become routine. What might be considered new this week were stories found outside the well-worn path. "Israeli film director badly beaten at the gates of the Israeli Foreign Ministry," blared the daily Lebanese An-Nahar on Monday. The story is more shocking than the headline. It concerns an Israeli director producing a documentary on officers of the Israeli army who have refused to take part in operations conducted by the Israeli army in Palestinian territories and instead are calling for an end to the occupation. The director, according to An-Nahar, wanted to include the official government line for balanced reporting. When he arrived at the Israeli Foreign Ministry for an interview with one of its officials and identified himself, the man was assaulted by two security guards. Significant as it was, the story did not get much coverage in the rest of the Arab press which, in fact, did not cover in detail another Israeli who was penalised for taking a stand against his country: Mordechai Vanunu. Last week the nuclear technician was released after 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement, for having told the world about Israel's nuclear arsenal. Vanunu's story, his release and the call for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction did not make it to the headlines of most Arab papers. Vanunu's account in jail, his concern about being forced to live in Israel for the rest of his life, Israeli brutality and his fear of being killed did not seem appealing to the editors of many papers. But in the Syrian daily Teshreen on Saturday, Hassan Youssef chose to speak about Vanunu and his future. "Now that he is out of prison where he spent 18 years for telling the world about Israel's nuclear secrets, Vanunu might be killed" especially if he attempts to reveal more secrets about the state's nuclear arsenal. Should this happen, Youssef said, it would not be too difficult to guess who the killer would be, just as it was not difficult to guess who killed John Kennedy a few weeks after he warned Israel against expanding its nuclear activities. But according to Youssef's conspiratorial argument, "If Vanunu is not assassinated ... then it would be difficult for any sceptic to conclude that Vanunu never violated the code of secrecy in the first place and that he was just another Mossad agent who was meant to scare Israel's neighbours." This was not the approach taken by the few other articles on Vanunu. In An-Nahar on Friday, commentator Samir Qusseir went beyond sympathising with Vanunu. In "Vanunu Arabised", Qusseir suggested that Arabs "should thank Vanunu," arguing that "Arab gratitude to Vanunu should be expressed symbolically by having a street or square in an Arab capital named after him. But above all, there should be political gratitude and that should include a resolution in the next Arab summit -- should it convene -- to adopt Vanunu's call to have Israeli nuclear facilities inspected by the nuclear watchdog the IAEA and to launch a campaign to achieve this objective." Another injustice which the press focussed on were the many Western citizens of Arab origin being discriminated against in "their" country. And there was one story in particular about the bias shown by Arabs against fellow Arabs. The Kuwaiti press this week was busy covering one of the hottest stories in Kuwaiti society: the Beidoun, individuals without citizenship. The story of hundreds of thousands of Kuwaiti men and women who were born and raised in Kuwait but are denied citizenship due to discriminatory practices adopted decades ago against their emigrant forefathers is consistently debated in human rights forums and is subject to criticism in many, if not all, human rights reports. This week, as the Kuwaiti parliament was busy deliberating ways and means of reducing the level of injustice to which these people are being subjected to, many Kuwaiti commentators expressed confidence in the ability of the Kuwaiti government to grant the Beidoun "some rights". Others were willing to exercise serious self-criticism and call for an end to the misery of these people who are denied their basic rights. "Get them out of this big jail" was the headline of an article in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Ra'i Al-Aam on Saturday. The writer, Sami Nasser Khalifa, could not have been more forthcoming in criticising the Kuwaiti approach towards the Beidoun "who have committed no crime and who were born and brought up in Kuwait and know no other home and no other people." According to Khalifa the state of the Beidoun is a case in point of human rights violations. "This fiasco [of the Beidoun] should come to an end ... the government must show responsibility and be taken to task for the injustice it has inflicted on these unfortunate people ... parliament must adopt legislation to end the inhumane treatment to which this group of people have been subjected." There was other material for melancholy. The bombings in Saudi cities, the human tragedy unfolding in Darfour due to the civil war in Sudan and the trauma of thousands of Gulf women who are losing hope of ever getting married because the right suitor just cannot be found. There was also the ongoing saga of the failure of Arab leaders to agree on a date or venue for the Arab summit that was supposed to convene over a month ago but is still up in the air due to inter-Arab differences.
